Kenny Talks About : Instilling the Importance of Value in the Young

It was a Public Holiday today, Hari Raya Haji, so I started out the day having a nice breakfast with a friend of mine, Goh Wee Ping (who happens to also be the host of the Deal or No Deal Chinese Game Show on NTV7). We had a nice chat and long conversations about many topics. One of which really stayed in my thoughts for the rest of the day was about instilling the importance of value in our young ones.

So, over some dried Sarawak noodles and laksa, we began talking about his childhood. His father had taught him and his sibling about the value of money since they were very young. At a very young age, they were each given a bank account in which they would be deligently putting their saved allowances. As this money accumulated, the choices was there on how they would use it. As children, they wanted toys, games and stuffs which tickled their fancy, but when it came to asking for those things, their father would tell them:

"I will always give you the things that you need (and sometimes treats), but for the things that you want, you will have to think about how much you have in your savings. The choices of what you want to buy is all up to you."

That made the children think carefully about what they really wanted. He had put the responsibilities on their shoulders to think about what was really important, to spend or not to spend and whether it's worth sacrificing another item.

It cultivated several important things:

• It is important to save
• Think carefully about what you want and what you need (there is a difference)
• Money is not an easy thing to come by
• To depend on yourself

Those would definately be the things I would want my children to learn and grow up to take pride and ownership of. It does give one a whole new perspective of what our parents wanted us to learn, while we were calling them stingy, selfish and being scrooges.

Well, till my next posting, Have a Nice Day! Have a Nice End of the Year too!